arguments

I sat here arguing with my characters for the last two days.

I was 11000 words into my story and had the scene completely plotted out, but couldn’t write it no matter how hard I tried.

I felt like there were a thousand people in my head screaming “NO!”.

What do you do in those instances?

What I did was to scrap it all. Copy and paste into another document and start over completely. The new beginning changes the whole shape of the beginning of the book, but what choice did I have? The characters were rebelling and not talking to me. When they did talk to me, they whined about what I was making them do. No music was helping and I was spending entirely too much time looking at my computer, pulling my hair out.

So, with a blank slate I wrote 2500 words in 45 minutes. Apparently, they are happier now.

Genre writing is like, so lame.

I was directed on twitter to a great blog about genre writing, bringing up a point that I noticed at the conference or even when I have conversations with people about what I write.

Sometimes, when I tell people that I write, I try to keep it humble by saying, “Its just fun urban fantasy.” I am beginning to realize that I am not only doing myself a disservice by saying that, but doing a grave disservice to the amazing authors that write in all genre fiction: fantasy, sci-fi, romance and all the other sub-genres I can’t think of right now.

Here’s the blog:

http://ididntchoosethis.blogspot.com/2010/02/where-have-all-genre-authors-gone.html

Here’s my response:

Well put, Adrienne.

There is no doubt in my mind that SF/Fantasy is considered muck in the literary community.

Having been raised on the stuff and loving it into adulthood, I am often a bit miffed that the snobbery abounds.

It takes no less imagination, command of verse or tenacity to write a genre book than it does a great piece of "literature". There are several books that I can think of off the top of my head that are brilliant pieces of literature, though they belong to a sub-genre. Does anybody remember a small, high fantasy title called The Lord of the Rings? Trite fluff, you say? Tolkein spent the better part of his life creating a LANGUAGE, for crying out loud. How many literary authors can say that?

Now, I'm not dogging literature. I read that too. I'm dogging the attitude that genre writing is somehow less than.

I am reminded of the art world, where quilting isn't considered art. It belongs in county fairs or in quaint B&Bs that great literary authors go to when getting away from New York. It takes every bit as much insight into perspective, color and light to build a quilt as it does to make a painting.

Its also like saying that if a band makes it big, they don't make good music. Huh? The Beatles? Stevie Wonder? Frank Sinatra? Prince?

I have a feeling I am preaching to the choir on this, but I loved your blog and I hope, at the very least, you had fun dressing up.

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Just having my soap box moment for the day. Now, if I can just wash the stress out of my hair, I will be better.

Cheers.